Why does my distribution list still show EM addresses? Fix?

[Guest]

After setting up contact info to hide EM addresses and adding contacts to
distribution list, Outlook still sends with all the info showing in the 'To'
field. What's the point of a distribution list if everyone getting the mail
can see everyone else's info? Besides doing the laborious 'cut and paste'
into bcc, what am I not doing that will give just the "nickname" of my
contacts when sending via a distribution list?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

EM addresses? What are those?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Guest]

Sue,
Please, I'm pressed for time. E-mail addresses...since you're an author of
something on Outlook, I have to buy a copy of your book to get an answer?
JH

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Most people have time to type "email" rather than keep us scratching our heads as to whether they've mispelled "IM" and what that might have to do with a distribution list.

If you don't want the recipients on the DL to see each other's names, put the name of the DL in the Bcc field.

My personal preference is to skip the DL (except for a few very short, very static DLs) and use mail merge to perform bulk mail tasks.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Brian Tillman]

After setting up contact info to hide EM addresses and adding
contacts to distribution list, Outlook still sends with all the info
showing in the 'To' field.

Of course. That's what the To field is for.

What's the point of a distribution list if
everyone getting the mail can see everyone else's info?

The purpose of a DL is not and never has been to hide information from
recipients. Its purpose is to give you a short method of specifying
multiple recipients without having to enter them individually.

Besides doing
the laborious 'cut and paste' into bcc, what am I not doing that will
give just the "nickname" of my contacts when sending via a
distribution list?

Put the DL name in the Bcc field to hide the list of recipients. I don't
know of anything you can do, other than changing the "Display As" field for
all your contacts, that will cause the To (or any other recipient) field to
show "nicknames", whatever that means.

 

[Guest]

LOL, okay okay...I'll type it next time. That fix was my thought too...just
dump the DL into the bcc field...but it seems like a stupid workaround for a
piece of software that is supposed to be a universal email program. Thanks
for your suggestions.
jh

 

[Guest]

Brian
Thanks for your quick response. You're right...Outlook DLs aren't designed
to hide recipients, just bulk EM...but it should be a feature given growing
concern over EM address harvesting, etc...

Anyway, that's what I'm doing from now on...just adding the DL to the bcc
field to hide the identities. As for 'nicknames', I use Outlook as my contact
management DB too, and in the fields, you can call the contact anything you
want in the 'display as' field, so I generally just use initials etc for EM
IDs instead of the full name and EM address. When Outlook picks up the
contact for the list, it lists them by their correct 'display as' name but
(as you know by now) also displays their EM address...which was the problem
in the first place.
Cheers
jh

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Bulk email *is* a feature in Office. It's called mail merge and works quite nicely, using Word's merge engine.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers